nasaCan you see the shape of a hand in this new X-ray image? The hand might look like an X-ray from the doctor's office, but it is actually a cloud of material ejected from a star that exploded. The new 'Hand' image shows a nebula 17,000 light-years away, powered by a dead, spinning star called PSR B1509-58, or B1509 for short. The dead star, called a pulsar, is the leftover core of a star that exploded in a supernova. The pulsar is only about 19 kilometers (12 miles) in diameter but packs a big punch: it is spinning around nearly seven times every second, spewing particles into material that was upheaved during the star's violent death. These particles are interacting with magnetic fields around the ejected material, causing it to glow with X-rays. The result is a cloud that, in previous images, looked like an open hand.One of the big mysteries of this object, called a pulsar wind nebula, is whether the pulsar's particles are interacting with the material in a specific way to make it appear as a hand, or if the material is in fact shaped like a hand.

alex_vvw@asmitho3 would you hold my hand even if it was a bunch of star dust and intergalactic gas? would you still love me if I was not a body but instead just small bits of star stuff? because I'd love you no matter what u were made of